Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Waning Summer

We're now past the half way point in July and the fire season remains very slow. While not over, at this point it is very likely that this will be one of the slower seasons in the past 25 years. As of Tuesday, 206,000 acres had burned in Alaska, about 45,000 acres less than than last year at this point in the season. The biggest fire was the Uvgoon Creek fire, east of Noatak, at almost 44,000 arces. There were no staffed fires as of Tuesday. As is usual for this time of year, lightning actively has slowed dramatically in the past week, with just 20 strikes in Alaska Monday, all north of Fort Yukon.